Smelly Man goes to Sulphur City (and we get to share a room with him)

With our adrenaline still pumping from playing on the swings in Waitomo, we made our way south to Rotorua a.k.a Sulphur City.  Rotorua is a hotbed (I had to) of thermal activity with lots of bubbly mud pools, hot springs, and geysers and as a result the place stinks of egg most of the time.  Amazingly this doesn't seem to have deterred tourists and backpackers from visiting as Rotorua is one of the most touristy and commercialized areas in New Zealand.

We chose to stay at Treks Rotorua, one of the 2 YHA (Youth Hostel Association) hostels in town.  When we arrived we were happy to find a very nice, newly constructed building with a spotlessly clean kitchen (a rarity at our price point).  We were also pleased to find that we were 'upgraded' from a 6 bed dorm to a 4 bed.  What a treat!  Looking forward to spending some time at this lovely facility we made our way to our room.  As we opened the door a wave of pungent stink wafted from the room and violated our nostrils.  This aroma was a thousand times worse than any of the eggy smells produced by Rotorua.  It was our roommate for the night, Smelly Man.  So much for the upgrade.  This guy was so ripe that we had to sleep with scarfs around our faces.  Luckily he checked out the next morning so we had the cleaners empty a can of air freshner in the room and strip his whole bed down to the bare mattress and replace everything.

Rotorua didn't totally stink though.  In fact, we had a lot of fun there.  In the morning we headed out to the Kaituna River and did some whitewater rafting with Kaituna Cascades Rafting Company.  We did the Grade 5 rapids (the biggest, scariest ones) which included several drops and the highest commercially rafted waterfall in the world at 7 meters (21 feet).  Awesome!

In the evening we decided to take a relaxing dip in one of the numerous thermal pools in the area.  We went to the Polynesian Spa which is located right on the lake and has some great views from the spa.  Aparrently the minerals in the water have healing powers and can help all sorts of ailments.  That may be but all we know for sure is that it definitely helps to remove dead skin as most of it was floating around in the water, urgh.  If you can stop thinking about the fact that you're sitting in other people's filth it's actually quite relaxing and enjoyable...and our skin feels great!